I'm going to throw these out there without any real data but what the heck,

1.Easy access to internet porn and other digital entertainment (dont need to go outside your home for fun)
2.Video Games (dont need to go outside your home for fun)
3.Abortions (less unwanted babies)
4.Rise of mainstream marijuana and fall of harder drugs (less violent crimes, and greater incentives to just lay on the couch and do #1 or #2)
5.cellphones and internet communcation lower "boredness" (more things to do for very cheap and access to larger networks of people for entertainment).

Overall, crime rates are falling back toward what they used to be just prior to 1960.

The overwhelming majority of violent crimes are committed by males between the ages of 15 and 35.

The crime rate starts to rise in 1960 when the first baby-boomers reach 15, and continues to 1980 when the last baby boomers reach fifteen and the first baby boomers reach 35.

It starts to fall in 1990 when the middle of the baby boom reached 35, and has continued downward ever since.

There are other factors - the availability of legal abortion being one - that are significant contributors.

Another factor that The Economist has not noted is the prevalence of cell phones, and now phones that take pictures. This means that police are called in real time, and photographic evidence is instantly available. Deterrence is only very weakly a function of the severity of the penalty. It is far more strongly a function of the probability of being caught. The spread of personal communications devices has increased the probability of being caught by an order of magnitude.

I would attribute the decline in street crime to the rise of the Internet. There are fewer people going out and doing anything, let alone crime. Most young people don't "hang out" in the streets anymore looking for trouble. We're all online.

I know! They should be reading more recent articles, like, I saw one in the Economist this week, and it had the line:

"A controversial theory proposed in 2001 by two academics, Steven Levitt (of “Freakonomics” fame) and John Donohue, which attributed half the previous decade’s drop in crime to the legalisation of abortion in the 1970s, still has fans."

You'd think that they would take the time to read that stuff! I mean, it's not like they are commenting on the article or anything, but they should keep up with the current literature!

Interesting ideas. My thoughts:
- The emotional benefits of porn and video games are underrated because they're not obvious.
- The abortion argument is compelling. I mean look how perfectly it fits the timeline.
- Cellphones and internet came along too late to explain the trend. And the population segments with the most violent crime don't use the internet very much.

This is a very timely topic, not least for Europeans. I have had the unqualified pleasure of living in New York City for the last few years and I am and remain very impressed with how safe this city feels. Contrast this with Denmark where an emergency room that had just received a victim from a gang-related shootout was stormed by 60 to 80 young men of Arab ethnicity, armed with clubs and knives.

I remember, in school in Denmark in the early '90s learning that there were areas of New York that were off limits (and, it was often hinted by the left-leaning teacher, that is how bad things are in the 'dangerous USA'). I see police ALL OVER New York, from the Bronx to South Brooklyn and I seriously doubt there is anywhere they can't or won't or don't go. Back to Denmark, the clash between traditional European and Arab culture in Europe is escalating all the time and there are areas of major cities in Denmark that are effectively off limits to the police. The situation is, if anything, far worse in Sweden, Britain, France....the list goes on. Multicultural societies cannot be 'welfare states.' They become, by necessity, law-and-order states. Like in the US.

I really believe there is something about police tactics that was developed, possibly starting in New York, that European police forces will need to look at.

Street crimes are committed by the young. As the "silent" generation and the baby boom moved through their teenage years and early adulthood, street crimes soared. Now people in those generations are age 50 to 80, and street crimes have fallen.

But white collar crime, and behavior that should be illegal but isn't, has soared.

The author alludes to this in his article, but only in passing; an aging population should expect to see lower crime rates in general. Statistically, this makes sense. Older people are less likely to commit crimes and especially crimes of violence. While demographics alone may not fully explain the welcome trend in declining crime rates, the theory does dovetail nicely with the legalization of abortion argument; fewer babies means a more rapidly aging population. I take issue, however, with the dismissal by the author of greater incarceration as a contributing factor. Longer prison terms and higher incarceration rates for violent and/or repeat offenders has very likely reduced violent crime given the historically high recidivism rate for offenders. Total incarceration rates may not jibe with declines in rates of violent crime on first glance because so many criminals are given long and mandatory prison terms for essentially nonviolent or transactional offenses such as drug trafficking. In other words, there is a huge pool of incarcerated convicts that may be muddying the statistical correlation. Individual states may also differ in how such criminals are handled by their criminal justice system. Criminology is of course an inexact science, but we had better come away from this era of reduced crime with some clear ideas about how to prevent a relapse of what we experienced in the not so distant past.

This is an interesting article and my perspective is as a retired British police officer, who has visited several of the cities named and having had friendly encounters with police colleagues.

There is a difference between actual crime, reported crime and recorded crime. The use of Compstat and other 'mandated' police objectives will lead to improper practices to achieve management aims. A house burglary becomes criminal damage for example.

Compstat can be little more than institutional bullying. Does anyone ever ask those asking the questions what they achieve?

Crimes that were once reported to the police are no longer reported, let alone recorded - mainly property crimes and some violent crime. At one point in Tucson, Arizona cheque fraud was rife, the solution if five preventative steps had not been taken don't report it and cheque fraud disappeared.

I wonder how public 'trust & confidence' is measured in the USA. Curiously now the only national, politically directed measure of policing success here.

There is clearly systematic under-reporting of crime. After cashing a check at a bank in New York City, my elderly dad was pick-pocketed by a con-man helping him clean a spill on his jacket - a spill generated by the con-man.

"Do you have any proof that he took your money?" "Any video footage?" "You probably just dropped it." "We will have to file this as LOST PROPERTY ... not a CRIME." Always a distinct pleasure to have a conversation with New York's Finest.

"Today, under a controversial policy known as “realignment” forced on California by the Supreme Court, the crowds of inmates in the state’s prisons have at last begun to thin out."

These inmates are not being released en masse, they're being re-assigned from state prisons to county jails which were never designed for long-term accommodation or rehabilitation. This is a time bomb.

I think this article underscores what Europeans don't understand about our gun culture. Mass shootings get all the press, but nobody actually thinks that there is a connection between real street crime and gun control. Americans have more guns but safer streets than 20 years ago. I don't see the point in disarming some surbabam affluent man who just wantsbthe peace of mind that having a hangun in the bedroom brings. The gangbangers are going to get their hands on guns anyway, legal or otherwise.